Thursday, May 23, 2013

Less than a month afterFleishmanHillard’swell-publicized(and pricey) rebranding –

an effort to preempt massive changes
in the communications industry by demonstrating transparency, nimbleness and
multichannel marketing – it looks as if at least one canary in the proverbial
coal mine has become woozy.

Actually, make that two or three, depending on your math.

In what seems to be a very prominent and permanent trend
(just read this Harvard Business Review article about the demise of the traditional ad agency if you don’t believe me), Omnicom
Group, the world’s top media holding company, has faced a challenging few
weeks as two of its subsidiary agencies announced widespread layoffs following
the loss of major client accounts. P&G’s Gillette products division ended
its 80-year relationship with BBDO and General Motors Chevy business severed
ties with Goodby Silverstein & Partners. GSP also lost its Nintendo account
amid additional client spending cuts. According to at least one person, BBDO
could ax up to 10% of its US workforce.

Not good news for ad land.

While details of the brands’ cutbacks are not entirely
clear, what little has been said
speaks volumes about where the communications industry is heading. Think about
it: P&G didn’t come to
this decision lightly – severing an 80-year partnership doesn’t happen overnight.
And it took 7 months for the brand to switch over to arch-enemy agency Grey,
part of the Grey Group division of WPP. An ambiguous
statement from P&G released in April summarized their reasoning for the
review was: “to generate fresh thinking
and uncover new approaches to connecting with men.” Of course it was.

Fresh thinking and uncovering new approaches is what
agencies get paid for. If your agency of record can’t deliver on those two
points then any partnership will falter. Although it lacks details, the P&G
statement is a damning indictment of a $1.47 billion communications agency that
was once the creative engine behind Gillette’s 1989 slogan: “the best a man can
get.”

GSP’s situation isn’t any better except to say that the
company’s founder, Jeff Goodby, sympathetically addressed the human side of
layoffs in an internal
memo obtained by AdAge.

“Please be assured: No one takes
this process lightly… We will do everything to find [those who have been let
go] new situations. And if history is any indication, we will find ourselves
welcoming some of them back in the future,” Goodby wrote.

Thanks for the encouraging words
but none of that will come to pass if agencies of all sizes (ours included)
don’t take a very long, hard look at their client relationships and determine
whether they are healthy and spry or if they’re functioning on inertia and
complacency – not a winning combination.

The lines between earned media,
paid media and the marketing channels they’re promoted on continue to blur. In
5 years time I predict that there’ll be no delineation between digital, social
or PR agency – if we aren’t able to provide these services to our clients,
we’ll be toast.

So it’s incumbent on all of us as
public relations and marcomm professionals to keep the client-agency dialogue fresh,
insightful and current. That means staying up on the latest social media
trends, voraciously consuming industry and client-specific news, spotting new
movements and being ready to adjust marketing tactics once old leanings shift
course. It means helping guide our clients through new territories and murky
waters. And it means taking bold risks and telling them how it is, not how they
want to hear it. It means being honest and offering solutions to problems they
may not see coming – but we do.

Omnicom’s brand wounds aren’t
fatal. As of this writing, OMC’s stock is up
24.1% for the year and US
advertising agency revenue was up 5.6% in 2012. But all it takes is the
slightest drop in fresh air before a real coal-mine canary becomes ill.

Will BBDO, GSP and other agencies
appreciate these layoff warning signs for what they are and take corrective
steps? In this business an 80-year relationship is unheard of – a guarantor of
rock-solid success. If those professional bonds can be broken, then really, anything
is up for grabs.

While the job market isn't the best right now, here are a couple of tips that might help.

Your son should definitely set up a LinkedIn profile and start connecting with local and national advertising agencies. This will put him on their radar and he will also be able to keep track of any job openings. LinkedIn also suggests jobs you may interested in based on your experience. Connecting through other social media channels such as Twitter and Facebook is also a great way to interact with companies and get on their radar, but be mindful not to overload them with tweets and posts.

Other job portals like Indeed, Monster and Simply Hired can also be helpful.

Vanessa Who? ThinkInk What?

Vanessa Horwell is the Chief Visibility Officer and founder of ThinkInk, a creatively-driven PR and visibility agency that shuns press releases in favor of storytelling. She's spent the past 15 years working with companies in the US, UK and Europe, developing clever campaigns and strategies for their brands. She founded ThinkInk in 2004, after being fed up with PR agencies that offered only more of the same. Vanessa and her team of ThinkInkers work with companies in North America and the Caribbean, UK, Europe and Australia to improve their visibility through strategic public relations and new media channels. You can reach her at info@thinkinkpr.com to learn more